


17:08

by butterflycell



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Background Relationships, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 04:51:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflycell/pseuds/butterflycell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She'd watched the news holos with a sick feeling, searching for information that was completely obvious in its absence. Amidst the reports of the the Enterprise's miraculous recovery and the damages sustained, there had been next to nothing about the crew or her captain. Jim had been mentioned only in passing, his name shied away from as his first officer limited interaction to the bare essentials.</p>
            </blockquote>





	17:08

**Author's Note:**

> I'm fascinated by Winona and the way fandom depicts her - I've love so many different characterisations of her, and this is just a look into one of the few versions of her that I developed in my head.

Starfleet infirmary is just as clinical and serene as it ever was. Winona Kirk had hated it for as long as she could remember... well, that was a bald-faced lie. She knew precisely when she'd developed a bone-deep loathing for the place, as she was forced to bond with a baby that looked so painfully like his father.   
  
She walked down the halls in a daze, following the quiet, crisp directions that she'd been given at the entrance desk. They were sending her to a closed ward, tucked into the extremities of the building that had long since faded into the background. Now it was the place deemed most appropriate to bring her son back from the dead. She clenched her fists and straightened her back as she approached the doorway to the correct wing.   
  
It was almost deathly silent here, her footsteps echoing off the slick, white walls. Her heart was thudding a little painfully in her chest at the slow creep of awareness. It had been a week since destruction of downtown and the island, a week since the majority of the senior committee had been murdered, a week since her son's ship had come free-falling towards the planet – only to leap back into the sky at the final moment.   
  
She'd watched the news holos with a sick feeling, searching for information that was completely obvious in its absence. Amidst the reports of the the Enterprise's miraculous recovery and the damages sustained, there had been next to nothing about the crew or her captain. Jim had been mentioned only in passing, his name shied away from as his first officer limited interaction to the bare essentials.   
  
Between renewal of her orders and a temporary promotion in the face of the decimation of Starfleet headquarters, there had been little time to uncover the truth. There had been nothing concrete to cling to until the early hours of the current morning.   
  
The comm had woken her up, her PADD chiming an urgent incoming message. With bleary eyes she'd pushed herself upright, her joints creaking in protest and aching with the weight of the past day and too little sleep. She'd cursed as she fumbled from the light switch and pushed her glasses on, squinting down at the screen. What she read felt like ice water down her spine.   
  
It was curt, succinct and very clearly telling her that her baby boy had died from radiation exposure in the line of duty. It also went on to tell her that at 17:08 that afternoon, he'd been brought back and was currently in a medically induced coma in Starfleet Infirmary, under the care of CMO McCoy. Needless to say, she hadn't slept much after that, thoughts of George rioting through her head. It was as if, for the first time, she could see him in Jim. More than the blonde hair and blue eyes, the rugged charm and easy smile.   
  
She'd taken the first shuttle a few hours later and here she was, approaching the door that her son's heart was now beating behind. She hadn't seen in him for nearly seven years. The last time she'd spoken to him in person had been as she was leaving for a two year assignment on research station in the alpha quadrant. She'd told him he was a disappointment, that he needed to buck up his ideas and stop wasting the life that so many people had died to give him.   
  
Jim had said nothing, just snatched his jacket from the hook, slammed his way outside and taken off on his bike. He'd only been seventeen at the time, and the jacket had hung off him a little awkwardly. He'd been a boy hiding in grown-up clothing because that was all he knew how to be. She tried hard not to consider that too deeply. Since then, they'd exchanged cursory words after he graduated and went straight to Captain – she hadn't even known that he'd enrolled – and she'd followed the newsfeeds just a little more closely, wondering whether this was how she'd know her son from now on.   
  
“Excuse me, ma'am, can I help you?” Winona looked up, snapped from her reverie to find herself pulled to a stop in the middle of the corridor. The speaker was a man in his mid thirties who looked like he hadn't slept properly in a week.   
  
“Dr. McCoy?” She straightened again, pulling herself back together. The expression on the man's face changed slightly, closed off and tightened into something just a little hostile. He nodded.   
  
“Commodore Kirk. He's just down here.” They walked in silence, McCoy leading the way to a room a few doors down and keying in the pass code. The panel beeped and let them through.   
  
Winona had no idea what to expect, had been plagued by visions of Jim's withered, decaying body, of peeling skin and open sores. What did radiation like that even do to a body? And what treatment was he undergoing that he had to be kept in a coma? The horror of her imagination had reached a point at which it had shut off for it's own good – much like it had as she'd tried to cope with not being able to bury George. She packed it away and resolutely avoided the subject.   
  
But now, walking into that room, the images flickered behind her eyes, growing more and more gruesome until she finally looked up to see Jim lying there, as if he were asleep. If it weren't for the machines he was connected to, it might have looked like he'd simply dropped off – but Jim was never so still. Even as a child, he'd wriggled and shifted throughout the night. He never sat in one place, vibrating with a nervous energy that manifested itself in acting out and playing up.   
  
“We're replacing his blood volume entirely to encourage new cell growth and co-operation of his organs.” McCoy spoke a little mechanically, hanging back near the door, but as Winona looked over, his eyes were fixed on Jim, flitting between the monitors and the machines, between Jim's face and the measured rise and fall of his chest. “I'll give you some time with him. I'll be just down hall if you need me.”   
  
Winona watched him almost physically drag his eyes away from Jim to meet hers for just a moment. He nodded sharply and backed out of the room before he could change his mind. Winona watched the door slide closed and paused, heart suddenly in her throat again. She took a long breath and turned back to the bed, but this time all she could see was the little boy who shuffled into the kitchen with bruises and scratches all over and stubborn tears held back in his eyes. But this wasn't a situation where she could pull out a regenerator and a bowl of ice-cream to make it better.   
  
Come to think of it, how many times had she done that? How many times had she found him black and blue and fixed him up? How many times had she actually been there to make things just a little less bad?   
  
She'd chosen the stars and the ghost of her husband over her little boy. She thought of the occasions where she'd come home to a teenaged son with ice-packs on his face, bruises swelling his knuckles and fierce, wild panic in his eyes – only she hadn't seen it then. She'd seen a boy who was wasting himself, who was making a mockery of his father's death. In the depths of her anger at Jim's behaviour, she'd even wished George had survived instead of their unborn baby.   
  
And perhaps that was how they'd wound up where they were, where she was no longer his next of kin – something she'd discovered at the infirmary entrance as she asked for Kirk, James T. - and she found out about his accomplishments through colleagues and the 'fleet news feeds.   
  
All those years where she'd blamed Jim for wasting George's sacrifice, it had really been down to her. She felt a wall of grief and shame and complete panic rise in her chest and she clapped her hands over her mouth to hold it back, closing her eyes against the heaving of the ventilator and the constant churning of blood through machines. The only reassuring thing was the soft beeping of the monitor, with Jim's heartbeats chiming against the mechanical whirring of the machines. The beat stayed steady, strong and resolute in the face of everything.   
  
Winona focused on it, getting her breathing under control as she turned back. On unsteady feet, she crossed the room to stand by the bed, starting to catalogue every last detail of the man her son had grown-up to be. There was faint bruising under his eyes, and a very slight tint to his skin. His fingers, nose and ears were verging on dusky, but Winona had seen far worse. She'd seen extremities lost to frost bite, to neuro-toxins. She'd seen skin decomposing whilst attached to live bodies, so this was nothing. McCoy had everything under control.   
  
She bit back another pang of grief and reached out gently to brush her fingers over the back of Jim's hand. He was warm to the touch, his skin dry and his muscles unresponsive. Carefully, she grasped his hand between both of hers and held on. Just for a second, it was as if it were George in the bed. She brushed the thought away and held on to Jim, running her fingers over the back of his hand and listening to the rushing of blood and air.   
  
She tried to remember the first time she held him, looking down at him as she listened to laser fire and exploding ship parts whilst George spoke. She tried to separate seeing their baby for the first time from the horror surrounding them. There had been something, some spark of love and joy, but the grief had snuffed it out before it had really had a chance to take hold.   
  
But it was back with a vengeance, the walls that had grown around it torn down so it could wash through her and take control. This was her son, this was her boy who was every bit the man his father had been. Pride swelled and throbbed in her chest and all she wanted at that moment was for Jim to open his eyes.   
  
“I'm so sorry, baby.” She murmured, moving a hand up to brush back his hair, stroking his cheek gently. It wasn't anywhere near enough, but it was something.   
  
She stayed like that for a while, losing track of time as the beeping carried on and the slow rise and fall of his chest continued. She couldn't stop herself from stroking back his hair or tracing the outline of his ear. She felt the years weighing on her heavily, more aware of the grey hairs and wrinkles than ever as she gripped tight to Jim's hand.   
  
There was a gently knocking at the door before it swiped open, and Winona glanced over her shoulder as McCoy stepped back in.   
  
“Sorry, ma'am. I just have to take some recordings.” He looked away and headed to the monitor bank, giving the bed a wide berth.   
  
“You're his CMO on the Enterprise.” She said, finally working up the courage to break the silence. McCoy stilled and glanced over his shoulder.   
  
“I am.” He frowned slightly, but didn't turn back to the monitors.   
  
“I didn't realise medical proxy carried on when grounded.” Winona could feel a flush rising in her cheeks the moment she'd finished speaking. It was an incredibly stupid thing to say – emphasised by the way McCoy's face smoothed out.   
  
“I've been his official next of kin far longer than his CMO, ma'am.” He turned his back then, keying commands into the monitors and PADD he was holding. Silence stretched out awkwardly between them.   
  
“I'm sorry, that was out of line.” She said finally.   
  
“Yeah, it was.” McCoy agreed, but his voice was quiet and unexpectedly sad. Winona wondered what the story was behind that, whether she'd ever earn the right to hear it. “We're all each other has. The idiot signed me next of kin on all his documents a couple of weeks after we got to the academy.”   
  
“Did you meet through classes?” She asked, watching the man's movements carefully as he shook his head.   
  
“The only seat on the shuttle from Riverside docks was next to him.” Winona suppressed a flinch at the name of her home-town. “Somehow we ended up sharing a dorm, but I reckon Chris Pike set that up to punish us both.”   
  
“Did Pike drag you off the floor of a bar as well?” McCoy quirked a smile and huffed a slight laugh before nodding.   
  
“I was staring at the bottom of a bottle and he sits down and talks me into a corner until I agree to get on the shuttle with him. I didn't realise I'd even been in Riverside until Jim mentioned it a couple of months later.” He glanced back, looking at Jim with something sharp in his expression. Winona wanted to ask what had driven him halfway across the country. “Anyway, dealing with Jim was my penance, I suppose.”   
  
A dark path for the conversation hangs heavily between them, and Winona doesn't want to go there. McCoy is clearly one of Jim's closest friends and undoubtedly knows about his childhood and his family, whether through conscious conversation or a drunken slur. McCoy knows about Jim bringing himself up, knows about the prolonged absences, knows about her cousin Frank and just how badly that had all ended up. She doesn't know whether they'll ever talk about it, but she can tell that neither of them can cope with it now, not with Jim in the state he's in.   
  
“I can't believe he's here...” She murmured, looking back at Jim and squeezing his hand.   
  
“Me either.” McCoy turned around and stepped a little closer. She glanced up, seeing his hands holding tight to the PADD.   
  
“I would ask how, but I know it's classified.” McCoy nodded a little jerkily and looked down at the floor. “Thank-you though.”   
  
“You don't have to thank me for anything.” He shook his head slightly, brow furrowing again.   
  
“I think I do.” Because this man had been there with Jim every step of the way. He'd been Jim's support and kept him in line. He'd given Jim someone to do right by, someone who believed the best in him.   
  
“I only brought him back because I couldn't stomach the idea of a world without him in it.” McCoy sighed and turned away, heading back towards the door. “Hundreds of people died that day, and he was the only one I could save.”   
  
Winona watched him frown again, studying Jim absently before shaking his head. Silently, should couldn't help but feel eternally grateful for it. She wanted to know how Jim had inspired such loyalty, such love. She wanted to know just who the CMO was to her son and who he was to McCoy. She wanted to meet the man he'd become.   
  
“You're all he's got too, you know.” She said gently, turning to look at the man still hovering between the bed and the door. He paused then and looked over, meeting her eyes properly for the first time. She felt the weight of that look, felt the agreement and the anger behind it, but didn't regret her words. He nodded finally.   
  
“It was good to meet you, ma'am. I'll have a list of visiting times forwarded to you, later on.” He turned on his heel and left, and Winona nodded vaguely in respect for the man. He was certainly an interesting character. She hoped they would cross paths again.   
  
She stayed a little longer, holding Jim's hand and straightening his gown every so often, murmuring things about his ship, about the state of Starfleet. She interspersed words with bouts of silence, just contemplating what had happened and digesting the new realisations. Mostly she wondered if she'd be allowed a second chance.   
  
When the nurse came by, she forced herself to let go of Jim's hand. She was very politely told that visiting hours were over and she nodded, swallowed a lump rising in her throat as she hovered for a moment. Without really realising it, she leant forward and brushed a kiss to her boy's forehead, stroking his cheek one last time before walking resolutely away.   
  
The walk out of the infirmary and into the sunshine was shorter than it had been in reverse. The glazed walls of the building made it shine, the silence no longer so cloying. She caught a shuttle straight home, already feeling sleep starting to close in. She was supposed to be at command, aiding with the clean-up, but first she needed to rest.   
  
She moved through the small apartment, shrugging her stiff, Starfleet regulation uniform off and climbing back into bed. As she reached for the light, she noticed her PADD lit up, signalling a new message. She opened the new comm to find it was from Dr. L. H. McCoy, containing a specialised list of visiting times and a brief summary of Jim's progress since ‘waking up’.   
  
For a moment, she was lost for words, something sticking in her throat. She wondered if this was an olive branch or whether it was a formality. She scrolled through the list of Jim's treatments to the bottom, finding a note tagged on the end.   
  
_“Next time, I'll let you have a chair. We can work our way up to a coffee. - LHM”_   
  
She smiled, laughing lightly and switching the PADD onto standby. She lay down and felt just a little hopeful for the first time in longer than she could work out. It wasn't long after her head hit the pillow that she dropped asleep.


End file.
